natural environment. In the vignettes and tailpieces he exhibits a fine feeling for the qualities of landscape.
In the first volume of "Birds" the Turkey and the Domestic Cock are faithful portraits; he himself considered the Yellow Bunting as the best he ever engraved. In the second volume the Common Duck is simply drawn, but with a masterly regard to the technique of wood engraving and its legitimate use.
There is a very fine engraving in the "Quadrupeds" of a young child standing dangerously near the heels of a colt. It is only some two inches by three, but its size does not detract from its strength and beauty. If the reader will lovingly turn over some of the early editions of Bewick and linger over the vignettes and tailpieces he has introduced, viewing them with care through a magnifying glass, he will find himself in a realm of pictorial beauty.
In order to appreciate the command which Bewick had over the exigencies of the wood-block and his strenuous use of white line as often as possible, as being more readily engraved, the two illustrations placed adjacent will explain the differing technique of copper and of wood. They are both illustrative of the old fable of the contest between the Sun and the Wind over a traveller as to which of these two could the sooner prevail upon him to relinquish his cloak. We know that in the end after blustering Boreas had made the man wrap his cloak around him the closer, that Phœbus achieved an easy victory by melting the traveller with his warm and insinuating rays. (Facing p. 88.)
